From Laredo to LSS: Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month

Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures, and contributions of Americans whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

Laura Ramirez, a resident of the Village of Mackenzie Place, a Lutheran Senior Services (LSS) Affordable Housing community, says that observing the month brings back memories of growing up in Laredo, Texas.

Ramirez said food was central to her family culture. Though finances were tight, her father was proud, and they never took government subsidies. “My mom made fresh tortillas every afternoon. We had a complete meal with flour and corn tortillas every day. I didn’t know what a luxury it was!”

In her school days, children were instructed to speak only English at school because many of their parents spoke Spanish at home and they wanted their children to become fluent in English. “We didn’t even speak Spanish at recess. But our parents supported that,” she recalls.

“Family is the most important part of my culture,” she says. “Family sticks together. Those are the values of our upbringing. We go to mass together. We celebrate with our food together.”

Important holidays are Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Cinco de Mayo, Mexican Independence Day (September 16), and Dia de Los Muertos. “Mexicans have adapted here. We celebrate all the holidays, like St. Patrick’s Day,” she says.

Dia de Los Muertos on November 1 is an especially important holiday. “It is a happy holiday. I eat the foods that were my mom and dad’s favorites, we play music, everybody gets together.” Her mom’s favorite foods were enchiladas and mole and her father’s was steak. “He ate steak and Mexican bread for breakfast every day,” she remembers.

While she can’t find food exactly like her childhood favorites, she does visit bakeries on Cherokee Street in St. Louis to get good bread. She is still looking for an authentic Mexican restaurant. She once went to a St. Louis-area Mexican restaurant and found food that tasted the way her mother cooked. She learned that the chef was from Saltillo, Mexico where her mother had been raised! However, that chef has moved on and she hasn’t had any further luck locally. So, she gets her fill when she goes back home. “I went to Texas for three weeks in June and all I did was eat!” she said.

She is helping pass along traditions by teaching her granddaughter how to cook traditional foods, like bunuelos.

Ramirez came to St. Louis years ago when her husband was in the U.S. Air Force. “St. Louis has been good to me,” she says. While most of her family is in Texas and Arizona, she stays in St. Louis because her son resides here. “I really love St. Louis and I love living at Lutheran Senior Services,” she says.